Taylor enjoys playing basketball and performing community service. Someday he'd like to become a doctor and researcher. "I would like to find a cure for cancer," Taylor says.

Farm animals such as chickens and cows are often routinely fed antibiotics to ward off bacterial infections. Studies have suggested that this practice leads to these animals becoming reservoirs of antibiotic resistance that passes to people when they consume the animals' meat. Taylor decided to analyze bacteria isolated from farms across the United States for patterns of antibiotic resistance.

Taylor worked with E. coli collected from 16 farms. He tested the bacteria's resistance to 18 different antibiotics by exposing them directly to antibiotics and by using a method called DNA fingerprinting. He found that the majority of the bacteria were resistant to the same three antibiotics and that antibiotic resistance appears to be on the rise in the past several years.